Birds love water
Have you thought about how dry Breckland really is?
Imagine you are a blackbird or a coal tit, breeding in the forest; where are you going to take a bath?
Although there is plenty of water in Thetford's rivers, there really is very little in the way of natural pools or streams. In the heat of
summer, the puddles in tyre tracks and the water that is trapped in guttering (that fortunately slopes the wrong way) evaporates and birds have to travel further to find somewhere to both drink and bathe.
You can provide a real service for birds just by making sure that there is a clean supply of drinking water in your garden.
Early one summer, a few years ago, I remember using a hose in our garden. As I was standing there, providing water for some newly planted bedding plants, a juvenile goldcrest hopped on to a branch of an overhanging shrub and took a shower in the spray.
It was a magic moment; the sun was catching the droplets and creating a 'rainbow' around the tiny bird.
It did not take me long to realise that I needed to set up a birdbath alongside the seed feeder, something that I effected by using a plastic saucer that would otherwise have been under a big flower pot.
The splashing of water is really attractive to birds; the noise and the movement seem to draw in birds from a distance.
You can make your own 'water feature' by hanging up a plastic milk container with a hole in it above your birdbath and letting the water drip into the bath below.
It is important to clean a birdbath regularly, by emptying the contents, scrubbing it out and rinsing well. Birds do not have much of a notion of personal hygiene and will freely poop in the bath, spreading diseases like e-coli and salmonella.
One additional complication these days is a parasite called the
trichomonas virus, which thrives in the throats of birds such as greenfinches and is passed from bird to bird in water. These days, not only should you clean out your birdbath as regularly as you can, it really helps if you can leave it to dry out for 48 hours before adding fresh water.
By providing two baths, and having them available on an alternating basis, your feathered friends will have access to water all of the time.
The BTO's Garden BirdWatch team at the Nunnery receives lots of questions about birds, from bird-watchers right across the country. In response to concerns that large numbers of finches have been succumbing to trichomonosis in different areas, they have produced a hygiene leaflet.
If you would like one, please pop into the BTO's head-
quarters, next to Nuns' Bridges, and pick up a copy or call 01842 750050.
Graham Appleton is from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), which has its based in Thetford. Learn more about the work of the BTO at www.bto.org
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Weather for Bury St Edmunds
Tuesday 07 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -6 C to -1 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -7 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North east
